Becoming an Amateur Turkey Taxidermist

Sweet spring is here. The woods are coming alive with the electrifying sounds of fired up gobblers and noisy hens as turkey seasons are opening across the country. If you’re lucky enough to pull the trigger on a longbeard this year, keep these tips in mind for a seamless experience preserving your bird to be remembered for future seasons. 

MOUNTING THE FAN

After you’ve tagged your bird and taken care of the meat using the Smiths Flex Folding Fillet Knife, it’s time to start preserving your turkey. To remove the tail fan, grab ahold of the fan as well as as many of the smaller “secondary fan” feathers as you want. Then, carefully cut around the meat that the fan is attached to using a sharp knife such as the Smith’s Edgesport 3” Folding Knife. If there’s excess meat that you think you can safely remove from the quills without affecting the integrity of the fan, go ahead and cut it off. When you’re finished with your knife, fold it back up and stash it in your turkey vest or pack so you always have a knife on hand. From there, you can take the fan to a taxidermist to have it mounted, but it’s quite simple to do at home. The easiest way to do this is to place the fan on a piece of cardboard and fan out the feathers using nails or a few push-pins to hold the bottom feathers into place. Once the feathers are secured, liberally sprinkle the meaty part of the fan with Borax to dry it out for at least a week. 

DISPLAYING THE BEARD

Hope you held onto that spent shotgun shell because we’re gonna use it to display the beard. Removing the beard is arguably the easiest part of this whole process- simply pull it out of the chest. You could also cut it if you’d like, just be cautious to not cut the hairs loose from each other or you’ll have a nightmare on your hands trying to wrangle the hairs back together. Moving onto the spent shell, use a nail and a hammer to knock the primer out. This will create a hole for you to thread the cord through that you’ll need to hang the beard up later. Then, you’ll need to cut the shell down a bit, leaving at least an inch intact. With that part done, loop your paracord and stick the top part of the loop through the primer hole. The loose ends should be sticking out of the bottom of the shell. Tie those loose ends up into a knot, and pull the knot up to hide it within the shell. Now, you’re almost there and just need to use some super glue to glue your beard inside the shell. When the glue is dried, you can hang this nearly anywhere, such as off of your fan or from your rearview mirror.

CUTTING OFF THE SPURS

The final step to preserving a turkey is to cut off the legs. The best tool for this job is the Smith’s Bait and Game Shears. Using the shears, cut the legs off at the knee joint. Many fan mounting kits you can find online include a space to hang the legs, but if you’d prefer to not keep the whole legs, you can just cut above and below the spurs. If this is the way you choose to display the spurs, you can run some fishing line through the hole that runs down the leg and hang them up wherever you’d like. 

Don’t feel daunted by the idea of doing your own preservation work if you tag a bird this year. It’s a relatively simple process and can be incredibly gratifying to do it yourself.

ABOUT SMITH’S SPORTING GROUP

Smith’s Sporting Group is a multifaceted, diversified company that supports a lifetime of outdoor pursuits and includes Smith’s Consumer Products and Tanners Team Sports. Tracing its roots to 1886, Smith’s Sporting Group designs, manufactures, and distributes key products and accessories for anglers, hunters, campers, and hikers, as well as those that love baseball, softball, and pickleball.